1 dead, 32 hurt in N.Y. traffic pileup

Flames engulf a passenger car and a tractor-trailer on the Long Island Expressway in Shirley, N.Y., on Wednesday.

SHIRLEY, N.Y. — A tractor-trailer crashed into several vehicles, setting off a chain-reaction of fiery crashes Wednesday on a major New York highway, killing one person and injuring 32 people, police said.
The accident on the Long Island Expressway, about 70 miles east of New York City, left at least two dozen vehicles strewn across several hundred yards of the eastbound lanes of the roadway. At least three vehicles, including the tractor-trailer carrying mulch that was involved in the initial crash, caught fire and were still smoldering into the early evening, a fire official said.
The injured were taken to three area hospitals; police said two of the 32 were listed in serious condition.
A vehicle involved in the initial collision with the tractor-trailer was incinerated beyond recognition with its tires punctured and paint burned off the body of the car. Some SUVs and cars suffered extensive damage while others appeared to have barely a scratch; all were haphazardly stopped across all three lanes of the highway. It was not immediately known which vehicle carried the person who died in the crash; police would only say it was not the driver of the tractor-trailer.
Suffolk County Police Deputy Inspector Kevin Fallon, a department spokesman, said the accident occurred at about 2:40 p.m. on a bright, sunny Wednesday. He said the eastbound lanes of the roadway, which connects suburban Long Island neighborhoods with New York City, were expected to remain closed until sometime Thursday morning.
Investigators were working to sort out the sequence of events that led to the accident that caused the chaos on the isolated stretch of road on the rural part of eastern Long Island, Fallon said.
"Anybody rolling up on this scene you would think there would be definitely more than just one fatality," said John Mirando, chief of the Ridge Fire Department. "It's just lucky that it's only one, but it could have been a lot worse."
Driver Danny Gershonowitz told Newsday that he was ahead of the accident when he saw two cars stop on the road shoulder.
"The gentleman to the right of me went down to the ground and was praying. When I looked in my rear view mirror, there was smoke and flames coming out," he said.
He said he and others got the attention of the truck driver, and helped him as he climbed out of his smoking vehicle.
"Pretty soon, the whole front of the truck was engulfed in fire, and that's when people started backing away," he said. "The police came and asked everybody to run and get out of the way, because I guess they thought it would explode."